7 Ways To Give Yourself Some Extra Love

How to receive the love and joy you want!

By Christina Dunbar — Written on Nov 29, 2011

Receiving… It should be a natural thing for us gals. After all, it's one of our feminine traits. In fact, it's one of our most powerful traits. It's what activates our desires. It's our ability to attract and then take in the abundance, love, and riches that we want so badly. 'Tis The Season! Are You A Giver Or A Receiver?

So why do we have such a problem with it?
I recently had a birthday and during that day, I was so touched by…wait for it…all the Facebook messages of love. I know, I know — Facebook? Yes, Facebook got to me. It was the hundreds of messages of love, appreciation, and gratitude people were sending me. Just sitting there right in front of me. It was so much energy of love to receive, and it was a great muscle for me to use — the muscle of receiving.

I know you're a conscious, heart-centered lady and I also know which muscles conscious, heart-centered women use the most. It is the muscle of giving. Energetically, when we give give give to the point of depletion and exhaustion — all of our energy is focused OUT. In a way, we have cut ourselves off from receiving energy IN. 10 Ways To Show Yourself Love This Holiday Season

As you probably know, feminine energy is one of an inward nature — circular, taking in, intuition. Masculine energy is more outward — action, straight line, bottom line. Neither energies are better than the other, but they must be in balance.

And that's the point. We as women, especially as busy women, have taken on much of the masculine and forgotten about the beauty, the magic, the miracle-making amazingness of the feminine. Receiving is about taking in, letting in, allowing, and surrendering. It's not about pushing, shoving, fighting, or striving. 4 Questions to Ask Yourself About Stress & Anxiety

So how do we begin to activate this powerful energy of receiving?

1. Dive deep into the land of desire.
You wanna receive? You gotta desire! You gotta want from a place of salivating joy, diving deep into the depths of your most juicy wants and honoring the desires that lay there. When we are in the constant energetic state of giving, we cannot, do not, and will not have space to tune into our desire. We are then cut off from the very things we want…so how can we receive them?

We don't even acknowledge them. Slow down. Give yourself space. Take some time in the morning or the evening and give yourself some time to explore your desires. What do you want? Make a list. Read that list. Imagine what it feels like to have those items on the list in your life. And to all my good girls; as a recovering good girl I have this to say — wanting more does not mean you don't appreciate what you already have. Wanting more and allowing desire to bubble up is the first step to creation. Do You Desire To Be Deeply Loved?

2. Give to … yourself.
I know. It's a radical idea. We're always giving to someone else — the kids, the hubby, the friends, the business, the vision, the house, etc. But what if you started giving half as much love, half as much attention, half as much kindness to yourself as you gave to others?

Do you think that would activate the power of receiving in your life? Remember, it's a muscle. One that we, as women, do not use enough. So come on my sassy sisters, I say this for you as much as I say it for myself. Let's start to practice receiving by giving to ourselves first. We hear it over and over again …

Put the airplane oxygen mask on yourself first. Pay yourself first. You gotta love yourself first. But do we do it?

Here are 7 simple ways you can give to yourself: